London (and Northampton)
My next stop took my to England’s largest city: London.
I had the opportunity to take my first rides on the tube and to check into my hostel in Victoria. That night I went out for dinner with Hannah, who worked at Aetna with me. We went to a meaty Japanese restaurant and forgot to snap a picture. Sorry Frank!
The next day, I was awoken at 5 am by a thunderous snorer in my room. He was kind enough to sleep directly on his back and to cry at the moon roughly every 8 seconds. I took the opportunity to nap in the common room in preparation for the day.
At 11 am, I set out for a free walking tour. We had a lovely Italian guide who took us through some of the most popular locations and told us a variety of fun stories, including one of a drunk man who broke into Buckingham Palace (twice). The second time, he took the opportunity to have a drunken conversation with the Queen (true story).
After the tour, I teamed up with a few friends from my walking tour for a trip down to Brick Lane. We began with a lunch stop on a lovely patio, during which I bought Cole his first legal drink (he is not 21 and cannot legally drink in the states). Afterwards, we went out looking for the street art that Brick Lane is well known for. We found a variety of beautiful murals and a lovely chocolate shop where I stopped for a Snickers flavored gelato. After a few hours of walking, we stopped for a drink at a classy cocktail bar before splitting up for the evening.
The next day, Cole and I teamed up for a trip to the famous British Museum. The museum holds a stunning array of artifacts from various eras, from ancient Egypt to the far east and medieval Europe. My favorite by far was the Rosetta Stone, encased in glass and mobbed by tourists. Other highlights included fantastic Greek pottery and sculptures (basically every statue’s head was lopped off at some point) and the famous thinker statue. The thinker was smaller than expected, as those type of things often tend to be.
In the afternoon I took a few hours to read and exercise in Hyde park. Along the way I took a photo with a huge arch thing that seemed important. My willing photographer happened to be from Colorado Springs (air force). I then met up with new friend Christy in the evening for cocktails and junkyard mini golf in Shoreditch (which is a bit like Brooklyn or RiNo in Denver).
After a well deserved sleep, I prepared myself for another day of full-throttle museum touring. I began with the Natural History museum, which sits alongside the Science and Victoria & Albert museums, just south of Hyde park. The museum contained far too many specimens to mention, but I found it did an excellent job of explaining the various types and creating interesting stories about them. One I particularly liked was a section on the year-over-year growing of antlers by deer, and in the growing of tusks by elephants and their dead cousins like the mammoth (the tusks seen in the photos are the largest ever found, and are from over 100 years ago). Of course, no natural history museum would ever be complete without dinosaur bones, and this one was no different. They even featured a full skeleton of my favorite—the triceratops. Final highlights included a slice of meteor that contains gem-grade precious stones, and the fully fossilized mollusk shell.
After a break for coffee and carrot cake, I walked next door to the Science Museum. The museum had a tremendous exhibit on the invention and development of various types of steam engines. I LOVED this exhibit, as it explained the mechanisms of each machine in detail with interactive videos. These machines were truly magnificent. I particularly enjoyed seeing the different mechanisms that were used to create the pressure differences necessary for moving the engine’s piston(s). It is unfortunate that these engines were beaten out by the internal combustion engine, as they were beautiful creations. After this section I went into the space travel section, which covered various elements of astronomy and space travel.
That night I went out with new friends Christy, Maddie, and Anna. We went out for brinner (breakfast at dinnertime), which included bottomless champagne for two hours. Time and money well spent!
The weekend brought about a trip north of London to Northampton, home of the Fitzhenry family.
(I met Helena, the matriarch of the bunch, out on a pub crawl in Galway! Helena’s kindness and relentless zest for life made me love her instantly. So, when she offered me lodging at her family home, I could not resist.)
I picked just the right weekend to visit, as Connor (the youngest of the three Fitzhenry kids) had organized a two comedy festival in their home town. I spent Saturday and Sunday laughing and drinking with the Fitzhenrys and their friends. Family and community are rare things out on the road, so I treasured these moments with such lovely people. Plus, I got my own room and I slept in very late. Also, Richard (patriarch) made me breakfast. Thanks, Richard.
Any Fitzhenry will have a place in my home in the future! What an incredible family! If anyone can restore your faith in humanity, they will.
The next morning saw me back onto the train and back into London. I met up with Christy at the Borough market, a fantastic outdoor market with many stalls and various types of food. We both ended up with some sort of Caribbean comfort food, that was both fresh and filling. We sat on a curb and ate our food before heading towards the Tower of London. We made a quick pit-stop at a beautiful church for a few pictures and a moment’s respite from the busy London streets.
The afternoon consisted of a trip to the Tower of London. The Tower was London’s central fortress and castle throughout the middle ages, and thus provided many services. It also sits next to London’s scenic Tower Bridge.
We moved through the Tower’s exhibits, first checking out the royal living quarters. Along the way, we were treated to a show by the royal guards. (For some reason to protect royalty you have to wear a crazy hat. Not sure why that is.). After a few unexciting exhibits, we went to what I’d been most excited for—the torture stuff! They had the infamous “rack” there, which was used for pulling people apart very slowly. They also had a couple of other tools that were apparently only used a couple times. By far the highlight of the Tower was the exhibit of armor and weaponry that was in the central building. A wide variety of suits of armor were on display, many belonging to important kings of England. That night I washed all of my clothes (which was a bit overdue, lol).
The next day, I took a walk passed the National Gallery on my way to see the Churchill War Rooms. Unfortunately the line was quite long, so I booked tickets for Thursday and decided to go elsewhere. I ended up settling on the Imperial War Museum, which turned out to be excellent. The outside of the museum featured real artillery cannons that were taken off a battleship, a replica shell for the cannons (with me, for scale), and a slice taken from the Berlin wall.
The museum has an impressive display on the main floor, including a spitfire jet, a press van that was hit by an IED, and a Nazi V2 rocket.
The museum had a rigorously detailed exhibit on WWI that far surpassed any I’d experienced before. The exhibit featured various cultural artifacts, weapons, and outfits. Some highlights were the French 75 cannon (the cocktail was named after it), weaponized gas canisters, the howitzer artillery cannon, an early “gillie suit” sniper camouflage outfit, and some vintage machine guns. The war was an incredible saga of twists and turns, and I came to appreciate the vast number of countries and fronts that were involved beyond those I’d heard about in France.
The upper floor did not have nearly the detail of the WWI exhibit, but featured a host of interesting artifacts of WWII. Highlights included a Rolls Royce fighter plane engine (these were used in both the British Spitfire and US Mustang fighter planes), a full size German torpedo, the tail wing of one of the most successful Nazi fighter pilots, a real Sherman tank, and a mostly destroyed Japanese Zero fighter (known for their role in kamikaze attacks). All in all, a stellar museum.
For dinner, I met up with a developer friend of mine, Hannah, her boyfriend, and a coworker of theirs. We had beer, food, and I got my fix of complaining about technology. Plus, we remembered to get a picture this time. (Hi Frank)
I got up at a reasonable time the next morning to take a trip out of the city. I took an hour long train out to the Royal Botanic Gardens in scenic Kew. These gardens are quite old and were commissioned by some king a few hundred years ago. I walked through the gardens for about 3 hours, enjoying the warm weather and the scenic views. England had been quite dry for a few weeks, so the grass was looking a bit brown, but the tremendous size of the trees kept my eyes trained upwards. One particular highlight was the elevated tree walkway, which gave us quite a view of the park and of the planes taking off from the nearby airport.
Next, I hopped back on the train and swung back to London’s museum area. I first took a swing through the Natural History Museum’s small butterfly exhibit. I tried to take photos of the butterflies, but they are quite fast. I did manage to get one solid one though!
After that I took a swing through the Victoria & Albert museum. This museum holds a wide variety of design related types of art, grouped by exhibition and type. I ended up mostly looking at the renaissance sculpture, which is always a favorite of mine. They had full-size casts of some Michelangelo works, including the David and the Moses. Another highlight was the display of fine Korean lacquer-based art, which included a video on how the lacquer is applied and shaped onto various objects. This process usually takes upwards of seven months to create any object, including the box (inlaid with shell) that I’ve included a picture of.
In the afternoon, I met back up with the Fitzhenrys! We met for beer and food and good chat, per usual. I’m so happy I got to get to know them!
For my final full-day, I met up with Nikita, a friend I’d made in Edinburgh. She was kind enough to save me a night of hostel pay and let me sleep on her couch. We went for a trip down to the Churchill War Rooms that I mentioned earlier. These rooms (now a museum) were Churchill’s headquarters for all operations during WWII. The war rooms were able to provide not only the communications, meeting spaces, and military facilities that were required for leadership during wartime, but the extravagant meals and accoutrements that Churchill was known for. Midway through the tour of the actual site, there was an extensive museum on Churchill’s role during the war, as well as his life before and after. While by no means perfect, his fearless nature was essential to Britain’s success during the war.
And, finally, that night I went to the Lion King. I actually went to see the Lion King with my parents when we went to London in my childhood. This was a fun way to touch back on that experience, not to mention that the music was amazing. Though next time I think I’ll see something with less screaming kids!
